Charles Seeger

American musicologist, composer, teacher, and folklorist, known, among other reasons, for his formulation of dissonant counterpoint. Among Seeger's many specific interests were prescriptive and descriptive music writing and determining the definition of what is meant by singing style. He is also known as the father of the American folk singers Pete Seeger (1919–2014), Peggy Seeger (b. 1935), and Mike Seeger (1933-2009); and brother of the World War I poet Alan Seeger (1888-1916). Seeger graduated from Harvard University in 1908, then studied in Cologne, Germany and conducted with the Cologne Opera. Upon discovering a hearing impairment, he left Europe to take a position as Professor of Music at the University of California at Berkeley, where he taught from 1912 to 1916 before being dismissed for his public opposition to U.S. entry into World War I. Seeger then took a position at Juilliard before teaching at the Institute of Musical Art in New York from 1921 to 1933 and the New School for Social Research from 1931 to 1935. Seeger was a founding member of the American Society for Comparative Musicology in 1933, the parent organization of the American Library of Musicology (ALM). From 1957 to 1961, he taught at the University of California Los Angeles. From 1961 to 1971 he was a research professor at the Institute of Ethnomusicology at UCLA. Seeger died on 7 February 1979, aged 92, in Bridgewater, Connecticut. Link to Wikipedia biography